Lighting technology evolves at an incredible rate. As recently as the early 2010s (when I started out as a mobile DJ) the sum total of DMX controllers was from small to large, and all were wired. These days, it seems not a week goes by when I don’t see or hear about another new way of controlling lighting.

I strongly suspect that, like me, most in our industry have a rudimentary understanding of DMX and can quickly get lost on hearing the terms ‘universes’ and ‘dimming curves’. I’m not a huge believer in new year’s resolutions, but I do like to set myself objectives for any given year: become a pilot, meet Taylor Swift (for a cuppa, I mean!), learn DMX properly – that kind of thing. I reckon achieving any of those objectives in the space of a year is quite the feat, though I’m not convinced DMX would even be the easiest of the three.

I know a few people who are pretty good at DMX. They always have that knowing look and use lots of those clever phrases. They also tell me it’s easy. It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that in this issue we have not one but two reviews of lighting controllers. And that the other review is about a desk that’s pretty far removed from the one I’m reviewing here. (I can only say that the most appropriate people have been chosen for these two tasks!)

In truth, any number of people could have reviewed the LEDJ VersiLED 6 wireless controller. But its very purpose had me intrigued as soon as I heard about it, because its main purpose is to control LED par cans, panels or strip lights.

A big part of my business is the supply of uplighting for events, mostly in the corporate and wedding sectors. I started out with a set of eight half-metre LEDJ bars (which I still occasionally use) and at my last count I was up to nearly 50 individual lights. We use them to provide additional income all year round. Whether including them as part of a package or upselling them, this uplighting can make a huge difference to your income, and I’m always looking for ways to make it even more compelling.

Wedding fairs are a good example. If you’re talking to a couple and you can change the colour of a room to suit their theme, right there and then, and follow that by hitting the blackout button, instantly changing the room to whatever lighting the venue has, you are very likely to have a booking for both lighting and your DJ service. And for that you need something simple, something somewhat smaller than a full-on lighting desk.

For me, a lighting desk should also be customer friendly. Yes, leaving a lighting controller with a customer seems counterintuitive. But I find myself having to do that more and more.
Most recently for a corporate booking who wanted uplighters for their all-day meeting. My clients wanted a full set of lights and for the colour to be changed for each presentation. Who’d have thought? This was another great idea that I could market to other businesses, but first I needed to solve a small problem.

You see, I could have sold them a nice little package of lights and a lighting engineer (ahem) for the day and earned a decent amount of money for changing the colours on the lights a few times. But staying awake would be an issue, especially as the business involved was a firm from the financial advice world. I’ve spent more than a reasonable amount of time in meetings like that, thank you very much!

In the end, my answer was to pre-program all the lights and leave a small controller with clear instructions on what buttons to press. It all went really very well, especially because I didn’t need to sit in a room all day with people talking about insurance and investments.

Now I have an ongoing investment in wireless uplighters and I’m always looking to control them in the most simple and intuitive way. Which all leads me on to the LEDJ VersiLED 6 wireless controller.

This rather clever mini-desk was sent to me by Prolight, along with some LEDJ uplighters. Designed as a DMX controller for RGB, RGBW, RGBWA or RGBWAUV fixtures, each light can be controlled independently. There are six sliders for colour channels, and one each for RGBW and AUV mix, macro, speed, and dimmer/strobe speed.
Further controls enable you to isolate up to four different groups whilst colour macros can be triggered by either sound or auto with speed control. For me, leaving lights at an event with the ability to go from single or multiple colours to sound-to-light is priceless. I always get a very enthusiastic response when I mention this to clients – it’s a brilliant selling point (as well as completely changing the atmosphere of a room).

There is a DMX out point, but I chose not to use it and went straight to controlling the LEDJ uplighters over wireless DMX. I have to hand it to Prolight, whoever wrote the user manuals for their fixtures did a great job. I’ve bought lights in the past that were barely explained by the leaflet they came with – and I’m not talking about cheap fixtures here!

By following the instructions to the letter, I had the lights up and running and was controlling them with ease. Indeed, once I had slowly walked through the instructions with the first light, the other three took seconds to set up.

I think the LEDJ VersiLED 6 wireless controller is a great little product and, at this price, is a no brainer. Take one with a set of lights to a wedding fair and watch the scales fall from the eyes of your prospective customers.

My own uplighters have been the best investment I’ve ever made in anything kit related, by some distance. I’d encourage you to take a look at Prolight’s LEDJ QB1 range; combined with this controller, you’ll see a return on your investment in no time.